Rubber backed mats such as used by the rental laundry industry require that the rental laundry's name be clearly and permanently identified on the bottom side of the rubber backing. It is often desirable to also permanently encode other items such as the date of shipment, or mat style number.
A further requirement of a mat labeling system is that it be possible to accomplish the labeling identity as a final step before packaging and shipping the mat to a customer. The labeling function can be readily accomplished during vulcanization of the nitrile type mat rubber to the pile-textile portion of the mat such as by using metal molds to case the required identification into the rubber. Another possibility during vulcanization is to use preprinted (and protected) or colored rubber (or other polymer based materials) labels compatible with the nitrile rubber backing such that they will be permanently bonded/vulcanized in place. The problem with labeling systems applied during mat vulcanization is that these mats cannot be put in general inventory since they are already identified for a particular customer.
For mats that are first put in general inventory (without customer identification), various labeling systems have been attempted on the already vulcanized mats. It is possible to vulcanize rubber labels to the finished mat backing by use of a small heated press but the process is excessive in cost and time requirement, taking more than several minutes. In the past attempts have been made to "burn" identification numbers into the already vulcanized rubber but this is also very unsatisfactory--unsightly, obnoxious odor, difficult to read. Also, systems using laser cutting have been investigated but these have required excessive capital investment.
Therefore, it is an object of the invention to provide a rubber or rubber-like backed dust control mat which can be readily treated to provide identification thereon.